out of iron and anger
by whotellsyourstory
Summary: On a battlefield, someone started a whisper that echoed all the way around the world, all the way into outer space - Iron Man is dead. - Tony Stark stored memories in snapshots, but they were all out of order.
1. i

Tony had always been a vivid dreamer.

His world was a brick house with no door. It was a trap – an escape room from which the smartest man in the universe – which Tony didn't claim to be – couldn't escape. Sometimes, others could be trapped with him.

"Where are we going?" Tony's mother asked, laughing. He just tugged her by the hand again, and ran down a hallway that did not end.

A door would slam, a bad dream turned nightmare, and now the walls closed in. "Where are we going?" Natasha Romanoff asked, eyes bright green and just as amused. Tony slammed into her when the roof collapsed, but there was nothing to be done for either of them.

The dreams held the same essence every time. All the puzzles, equations, problems he couldn't solve – an exit that never existed. Inevitably, he'd find himself staring into an ever-present mirror – _there you are_, his lonely reflection said, round eyes and messy hair and all Tony, _go ahead – stare at all the ties and locks that keep you here._

* * *

Tony rapped his knuckles on a rain-soaked car window. The sound was sharp, but his mother wasn't startled. "Please?" he requested, very polite and earnest.

Maria obligingly rolled down the window. There were tear tracks on her cheeks, matching the rivulets trailing down the glass of the windshield. Tony's eyes followed them quietly, back and forth and glinting under the pale lighting, until he had something to say.

"Scooch," he requested. Maria paused – she did this a lot, parsing Tony's words when he was far too holistic and unexpressive with them – and shuffled over to the passenger's seat, improbably stripped of all her usual grace.

Tony plopped himself behind the wheel, dripping rain everywhere, and wiggled his fingers at her as a request for the keys. Maria's eyes were framed by pretty, crisp red lines, scrutinizing him; she handed them over.

The engine roared and he peeled off the driveway in an unnecessary hurry, tires squealing erratically, just because he knew it would exasperate her.

"Where are we going?" Tony's mother asked. He wiggled his brows at her, and Maria let a small smile play at her lips, because she was exasperated.

* * *

In the great countdown of life, Tony never knew what number it was, the day he was living.

"Pepper," he asked, in one of those moments where she made him forget everything about himself that wasn't wrapped in her, "what're you afraid of?"

Pepper twisted, laid her head on his scarred heart. "Nothing," she declared.

It sounded so final and confident. "Really?"

"Really."

"I'm scared of everything."

"I know. I'm a practical woman, Tony."

"How literally do you mean that, right this moment?"

Pepper's lips pulled up a little; his heartbeat spasmed for a second. Tony would spend several lifetimes chasing that smile. "Impermanence," she murmured, "it's not fun to dream about forever when it doesn't exist."

"Pep-"

She kissed him. His skin must have visibly lit up under her touch. "I've lost a lot. I'll lose more." Pepper straightened and gently eased out of his arms, making him feel the loss rather harshly. "In a little bit, Morgan will come jump on the bed, and we'll pretend to wake up. We'll have breakfast and you'll feed your alpaca. Tomorrow we can do it again. All I want from you is that you stay as long as you can."

Tony gaped after her – she settled again, this time burying her face in the crook of his neck, and closed her eyes. He was left playing with the hair she'd spilled across his chest, goldin the morning light and blended in with her freckles; all Tony's genius could come up with was a chant of _impermanence, impermanence, impermanence_, and a sudden sense of impending doom, because his moment was over.

Blindly, Tony pawed around for his phone. He dusted off a file he'd created back when he'd watched his girlfriend take control of Iron Man in a rather unique way, glowing red from inside out with a shredded gauntlet wrapped around her arm.

By the time the door squeaked open, he'd picked out the color. Morgan jumped on the bed, Tony and Pepper pretended to wake up. They had breakfast and Tony fed their alpaca. By the time the afternoon rolled around, he was running tests on a new helmet interface.

* * *

Tony had decided he didn't want kids long before he met Harley Keener, but that kid was definitely a validation of his feelings on the matter. He'd never discussed it with Pepper – she was the sort of person who would just know, anyway – but the only good thing he'd wrought from his extensively documented daddy issues was a kind of instinctive certainty. It told him, staring at a pint-sized, snarky mechanic-to-be, _I can't ever ruin something like that._

* * *

"Hold me, kid. _Hold me_."

Hugging Peter had sounded like a shout, like screaming laughter and a crowd's cheer – it had sounded like '_I win_'. Snapping his fingers, hearing Pepper and his kid doing their best to comfort him in his final moments, promising him his victory; it was like watching the party from the sidelines, all the people he loved singing their own anthem – it had sounded like '_they win_'.

_To the victor go the spoils. _Tony had made damn sure of that.

* * *

Tony picked fights because he was morally outraged, because he was self-righteous, because he was angry, and because he could; not in that order. It meant there was a specific type of person he picked fights _with_, and to his chagrin, it was the exact type of person Tony saw in the bathroom mirror every morning.

Occasionally, instead of falling for Tony's bait, Howard tried to take better charge of the situation.

"Tell me something, son," Howard said, and Tony didn't think his tone had much in the way of emotional inflection, "where are we going?"

Tony had just been trying to have a vicious argument about why he should be allowed to stay in Malibu for the summer; he hadn't been angling for a heart-to-heart. "Y'know, I can usually keep up with you no problem, but you're gonna have to dumb that down for me, just this once."

"Where do you see this going?" his father clarified, uncharacteristically patient. Tony blinked. "Do you have an endgame?"

_Not dying of boredom in New York for two months. _"Getting out of this conversation alive," he chanced instead.

"And how do you plan to do that?" Howard prompted. "Pissing me off so much I let you out of my sight before I say something I regret?"

"That'd be nice." Tony was really pushing his father's limits. Luckily, today, they seemed extra flexible. Howard's only reaction was a twitching eye. "I know why you want me in New York, you know."

Howard stiffened. His father was good at keeping his secrets, but Tony was better at sniffing them out. In this specific instance, Tony hadn't sniffed anything out, necessarily, but he knew his own father – he was far too insistent about the New York trip to not have ulterior motives, and he would never have this much tolerance for Tony's rebellion if he wasn't feeling uneasy about it.

All of which left a business-related problem to blame for Tony's upcoming summer. It made him extra callous in this particular argument.

"You're smart. You're strong." Howard granted, studying him with a gaze that was calculating, analytical. "So don't get angry. Because you could raze the world if you wanted to."

He stood and left Tony in stunned silence for a record length of two seconds. "So we're still leaving for New York?"

"Yes," Howard replied without missing a beat. "I hope you're packed on time, because you'll lose car privileges for a month otherwise."

* * *

In the end, Rhodey smiled at him – Tony didn't have enough in him to think about what it meant, but maybe, he imagined, his best friend knew not to bring sadness to this place, where Tony was dying to keep another one of his weapons out of someone else's hands. Maybe, he hoped, they'd both figured out that one thing at the top of Tony's priority list, and Rhodey was finally okay with it.

* * *

_Tall, blonde and righteous; a fine summation of everything put on this earth specifically to aggravate me._

Tony was loopy enough from expensive drugs, cheap shawarma, and a possible concussion that he couldn't be certain he hadn't said that out loud. Either way, Steve sported his habitually stoic, earnestly concerned Captain America expression in response. Tony had known the guy for all of twenty-four hours and he could paint that look with his eyes closed. He had never painted anything before in his life.

(Definitely the drugs.)

"It's messing with my head, how not-imaginary you are," Tony greeted him before the guy could open his mouth. "I seriously met two self-proclaimed gods today, but it's that moral righteousness that's killing me. Just tone it down."

"They actually don't call themselves gods," Steve replied thoughtfully. He was leaning against the doorway in Tony's hospital room, a visit surely prompted by Natasha sniffing around Tony's whereabouts. "Well, Loki might've, but I don't know that he really believed it."

"Beg pardon? You don't think he believed it? Were the two of us fighting two entirely distinct figures straight off Norse mythology today?" Tony slapped the bed beside him, thinking about how eager Clint had been to leave their company, shaken by the day's events, and about how quietly happy Bruce had been, to have a place to stay in Stark Tower. "_Hey_, now we know Thor exists, do you think we're gonna end up fighting Osiris, or Juno, or one of those other guys, the ones who wear white dresses all day long?"

"You're especially talkative right now, and that's saying something," Steve noted politely. "I take it you're on the good stuff?"

"Yeah, it's what I get for 'playing fast and loose' with 'my life'."

"That so? They must've changed the definition of negative reinforcement in this century."

"Don't tell me you have a sense of humor too," Tony groaned, sitting up a little fast, which provoked an aborted motion on Steve's part. He'd reached forward as though he intended to grab Tony. "Were you about to hold me like a fainting Victorian lady? I'll warn you, I'm taken. You do _not _want to fight Pepper over my honor, she doesn't take prisoners."

"My sense of humor is probably not as fine-tuned as yours," Steve said, and Tony was not imagining the mirth in his eyes. (_Is everything a joke to you?_) "You have a wife?"

"God no, don't insult her," Tony said without thinking, and was rewarded with a confused glaze in Steve's eyes, who probably thought he was facing yet another thing he didn't understand in this century. "She's my girlfriend. Couple steps behind. I believe the equivalent, where you're from, was asking the lady's father whether you were allowed to know her name."

Steve nodded once, square and determined. _Jeez_. "Right."

"Relax," Tony advised, mouth running away from him a little, "things will start making sense with time."

Tony was terrible at giving advice. Luckily, Steve seemed the type that would be terrible at receiving it, too. Tony even thought the man's shoulders loosened a little. "So where is she?" he asked, taking the liberty of sitting at Tony's bedside.

"In DC, until New York gets the all-clear. Are you gonna stay long?" he asked bluntly.

Steve expertly ignored him. Tony could already tell that would get annoying fast. "You didn't tell her you're in the hospital."

"Elementary, my dear Captain," Tony replied automatically, laying back down with a childish huff. He had the vague thought that he would be embarrassed about his behavior when the drugs wore off. "This is a first world hospital visit, let's not make a fuss. Hold up, was Conan Doyle born when you crashed your plane?"

"Yes, Tony," Steve said patiently. "That's not a Conan Doyle quote."

"It's not? Wait, don't answer that, I don't care."

"I used to have a newspaper cutout of his obituary," Steve commented, and Tony wasn't too out of it to note the faraway note in his tone of voice. "Bucky – uh, this friend of mine who I went to war with –" Tony made a mental note to take the poor guy to the Smithsonian – "he snuck in _A Study in Scarlet _when he enlisted."

"That's- morbid," Tony said. "And cool; they had fangirls in the thirties too. My favorite Holmes is _The Final Problem_," he added, apropos of nothing.

"I could've guessed that," Steve conceded, leaning back and crossing his arms. "Listen, Tony, I didn't just come here to check on you. I wanted to apologize."

"I think I liked _Stark _better," Tony said. "What am I apologizing for?"

"_I'm_ apologizing," Steve stressed, brows furrowed in a clear effort to intensify the _Captain_ in _Captain America_. "It shouldn't have taken me so long, but for what it's worth, I see it now. I was wrong. When I told you you weren't a hero."

"Dear god. This is terrible, but you've gotta realize – you forgot the violins for this scene."

Steve rolled his eyes. "I didn't forget, I just can't play the violin," he deadpanned.

"Apology accepted," Tony said abruptly, because if Steve Rogers showed off any more of his sass, in his current condition, Tony might just become tongue-tied. "Let's not talk about it anymore."

"What you did-"

"Oh no, you don't," Tony interrupted. "I am _not _about to get a personal rousing speech. Get out of my room, Rogers, I'm serious."

Steve seemed to chew on it for a minute before sighing. He nodded and stood up. "Alright."

("Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me," Steve Rogers had said, tongue firmly in cheek, and the last person Tony had taken an order from was his father, but from that moment on, he tuned his ears and straightened his spine every time Captain America walked by. The measure of a man, it turned out, was not what the product of Tony's bereaved, petty, overdeveloped mind conjured up – he was very rarely surprised into silence.)

"For the record –" Tony said before Steve could take two steps, voice carefully devoid of emotion – "it's not a competition or anything, but I just want you to know – I figured out _I_ was wrong even before I said- it. Before I said the thing I said." Steve cracked the second smile Tony had seen on his face thus far, hopefully taking that as Tony's own apology.

("We are not soldiers," Tony bit out, and hoped, by surprising him back, they'd found some common ground. Tony refused to see a friend as a cog in someone's machine, just a tool with an expiration date; Steve believed in higher purpose, and was willing to be a giant tool himself. They made it work.)

"I'll see you, Stark," Steve said, a hard clap on Tony's shoulder that made him wince and think _soldiers_,with an exasperation he usually reserved for Rhodey's army buddies.

"Have a splendid one, old chum," Tony told his retreating back.

(_We won._)

* * *

Tony wasn't entirely sure what he was doing, all alone, at the only bowling alley in the city open at two in the morning.

"You need a bodyguard," his father had told him, "especially if you plan on keeping up your inverted night-day schedule. You're not allowed to go out after ten without a babysitter anymore."

The very same day, at exactly ten-oh-one, Tony snuck out of the house, feeling purposefully bored and defiant. It seemed stupid now - incurring Howard's anger for such a pointless, lonely trip. So he set about doing what he did best: finding a way to make his father go apoplectic without technically ignoring his instructions.

There were three people in the alley. A neon-haired woman, possibly asleep behind the counter, a curly-haired young man occupying one of the plastic chairs, and Tony himself. Tony zeroed in on the guy – he was stretched out in his seat, not snoring like the upcoming employee of the month, but staring blankly into the distance. It made for a pitiful sight.

Tony sat down a couple of seats away, and went surprisingly unnoticed. He took the opportunity to scrutinize him further. Boring jeans, sweat-stained hoodie, beat-up sneakers. In need of a haircut _and_ a shave. Bags under his eyes and a morose expression on his face. The cheeks and the baby browns made him look years younger than the scruff, too.

He was also wearing a name tag, and for the life of him, Tony could not figure out why. He glanced at it - _Harold Hogan_. That was some terrible alliteration.

The thing was, Tony was always feeling bored and defiant. He pondered Hogan for a little while, and then whistled, two sharp, shrill notes that made the girl behind the counter slip down on her elbows.

"Hey, Happy," Tony called out, watching him start upwards. "Yeah, you," he added as Hogan looked at him, and reached out to pull at the man's sleeve, "you have a job?"

Dragged to a new seat by Tony's side, Hogan stared down at where Tony's hand was still holding onto his arm, and then up at Tony himself. He definitely recognized Tony Stark, which made this less fun; but how boring could he be, with a name like Harold?

"Yes, sir," he replied, feeble and nervous. Tony was pretty sure the guy was older than him, so being referred to as _sir _was uncanny.

"Perfect, I'll give you a new one."

He recoiled, but Tony held fast. "I was lying, I don't have a job. I just didn't want you to think less of me."

"Even better," Tony said cheerfully. "Appreciate the honesty. I'll quadruple whatever you say your non-existent salary is, so use your imagination wisely."

Hogan's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "If you don't mind me asking, sir, what's the job?"

"Bodyguard. Too many kidnapping and assassination attempts."

"Am I hallucinating?"

"No."

"No?"

"No. It really is two am and I really am offering you a job in a rundown bowling alley."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I'm also getting bored now."

"I'll take it," Hogan said quickly, nodding as if to himself. "I'll take the job."

"Great, first shift starts right now. We'll find a less deserted place to hang out. What's your name, by the way?" Tony added as an afterthought, pointedly and ironically staring at his name tag.

Hogan scrambled to catch the jacket Tony threw at him in the meantime, and risked a glance up at his face. "Happy Hogan."

Tony burst out laughing and hoped this one passed his father's background checks.

* * *

Tony had spent a good chunk of his life alone. Not just alone, but lonely, as well. In an Afghan cave where he was held prisoner, he was surprisingly neither – he had a wise old prisoner of war for company, who Tony had apparently met in the context of one of his excuses to get wasted.

"You are a talented engineer," the man noted, one of many equally cold, damp nights. "It is not my field of expertise," he admitted, "but I can tell."

"Yeah?" Tony replied emotionlessly, unenthused by the topic of choice. "You see a lot of it at work?"

"My allotted share," Yinsin confirmed noncommittally. Tony's head snapped up to stare. "Come now. Surely by now you know – people who end up here have seen more than the average man."

Tony twitched abruptly, grasped violently at the cable coming out of his chest. By now, Yinsin had learned to identify it as a nervous tick instead of a medical concern. "Did I take something from you?"

"And what is the purpose of that question, hmm? Will it make you feel any better if I say _no_, or any worse if I say _yes_?"

"No," Tony said quietly.

"You took nothing from me, Stark," Yinsin explained calmly. "_The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. _But that does not make you evil."

"Just an enabler."

"Yes," Yinsin agreed. "Luckily, you appear to have had your eyes opened. So what will you do with them?"

"My eyes or _my weapons_?" he uttered, a phrase always on the tip of his tongue, lately. Yinsin gazed at him with pity. He had said something about _legacy_.

Tony tore his weapons apart and built himself a new heart.

"That could run your heart for fifty lifetimes," Yinsin noted, but Tony wasn't so sure he wanted to live that long.

Tony stared at the tools of destruction he had stamped his own name on, the debris of his fruitful labor that Tony had dismantled himself. For some reason, it occurred to him then – it had been his father's name too. Tony wasn't quite sure how, but somewhere along the way, he had become a giant standing on a titan's shoulders.

* * *

"Do we know if she had any family?" Tony asked, and hoped for some miraculous answer. Not for Natasha – not for some imaginary people that he didn't know – but for himself.

("Where are we going, Tony?" Natasha asked, smirking, the day the new Avengers moved into the compound. Natasha Romanoff was the only person to whom Tony revealed the location of the good liquor cabinet, and she took the secret to her grave.)

_Strike three_, Nat whispered in his brain. She'd given Tony the tools to build the most dangerous weapon in the universe.


	2. ii

Once, Tony dreamt about Steve Rogers leading Peggy Carter in a dance. That would have been weird enough, but five seconds of watching also inspired in Tony the urge to correct their posture. _It's been a long, long time_, said the tragic, ironic bars of a familiar song, played with none of the clarity found in twenty-first-century technology. Peggy tilted her head up, a kind of closeness far too private for Tony's eyes, and paused just for a moment.

"What did it cost you?" she asked, and Steve's smile faltered briefly. He wouldn't give her an answer, so it all faded away in another ill-timed twirl.

What struck Tony about the scene was that he had never seen that look on Steve's face – not once, in more than a decade, had his friend looked so genuinely happy. When he awoke, Tony thought it was the saddest dream he'd ever had.

* * *

Sometimes, Howard caught Tony in his less-than-stellar moments. Clothes rumpled, torn, or lost; inexplicable stains that didn't look as disgusting as they truly were; clammy, rosy cheeks and a tell-tale glazed-over aspect to his eyes. Howard drank in a robust alcoholic way; Tony did it in frantic binges. The results were less visually appealing in the latter case.

"Some dignity will take you far in life, you know," his father told him, clipped, cold, polite. Tony didn't know why he bothered tampering the burning flames even _he _could see, festering underneath. "Maybe you should work for some of your own, before you run out of everyone else's."

"Or maybe I should just make sure I never run out of everyone else," he quipped back, every bit his father's son.

Howard snorted, and for a surreal moment, Tony felt as though they were sharing something – on the same page of a book they never read together. "You'll always run out of everyone else."

Tony blinked once, and in front of him stood a lonely, tired man, plagued by deeds and words and the world on the palm of his hand. He blinked twice, and it was Howard Stark again.

Somewhere in Tony's chest, there was a surge of protective concern that ached unexpectedly. His father was far too powerful to need Tony's affection, he reminded himself.

_I have you_, he almost said, stupidly, and blindly stumbled out of the room in search of his mother instead.

* * *

Under Happy's watchful vigil, Tony decided this was a good, decadent place to rest. The dust swirled in front of his half-lidded eyes, and a disgusting beer bottle rotted a few feet away, label soaked in someone's vomit – the smell of vodka suddenly seemed putrid, and Tony thought, head idly lolling in his arms, he'd have no dignity in death, either.

* * *

"I think I'd remember if you'd gotten your driver's license yet," Maria teased him, an awful buildup of tears at the corner of her eye. "I'd be triple-checking the garage door locks every night."

Tony tried to steal the car keys, but her hand flew out of reach. "I've been able to unlock every door in this house since I was six," he declared, and his mother was startled enough that he could snatch her keychain. "Could hotwire the car too, but why go to the trouble?"

"Arrogance is an unattractive trait," Maria scolded, apprehensively watching him slide the key into the ignition.

"Luckily, I can clearly afford it," Tony quipped back, blowing her a kiss. His mother rolled her eyes, and the tiniest amused twitch in her cheek told him his efforts were a roaring success.

The dusk outside hid most of his house, Tony noted, looking through the windshield. He flicked on the headlights, and much to his mother's alarm, actually brought he engine to life. But Maria said nothing, did nothing, just clicked her seatbelt on and made him do the same. The trees made creepy shadows on the asphalt, under the artificial lighting; this didn't seem like the right time to be wide awake, but Tony wanted to go for a ride.

"You're growing up fast," his mother commented as he peeled off the driveway. "Slow down."

"That's not how biology works."

"I meant the car, you little whippersnapper."

Tony burst out laughing, nearly swerving off the road, and after a moment of silence and a head-slap, Maria chuckled too.

"Where to?" he asked lightly. Their house disappeared from the rearview mirror.

She clicked her tongue. "Back home. You shouldn't be driving."

"Shall we tour the town, then?"

"The block, Tony."

"Yes, ma'am. Right after the town."

Maria sighed. "New York is far too small for you, I take it."

"Haven't you met me? I'm so much larger than life."

* * *

Some moments, Tony knew, stretched out for a month before rushing through in an instant, a dramatic final sprint into insurmountable grief.

"I lost the kid," he choked out in Steve's direction, barely registering his response. It was dark, and it smelled like grass and burning fuel. Tony hadn't had a shower in weeks. "Is-"

_Is Pepper still real?_

She still arrived. And so had he. Tony recorded his message, but he touched feet on solid earth ground again. Pepper was no hallucination, and neither was Peter. Somehow, the universe was still spinning.

_I just wanted to be like you_, the kid had claimed, eyes red-rimmed and glassy with all the horrors of what could have been, and all Tony could think about were titans and giants, mountains reduced to dust in the wind. That boy was never meant to be a monster. Maybe it was why he was gone.

Tony exploded, collapsed, woke up feeling smaller than ever. And left.

* * *

"Tony, look at me."

Sometimes, Tony figured he'd spent his entire life looking at her. This time, he was having trouble finding her eyes. Pepper cupped his chin gently and made him look up.

"I'm not sure how we got here," he said honestly. Pepper shifted forward slightly, knees scrapping on the floor; she tugged one foot, two feet free from her heels, and the tiles under them suddenly felt less cold, to Tony.

She shrugged and tied up her hair next. "Some things don't change."

"Don't-" His voice cracked. Tony tried to shift away, but he didn't really want to. "Don't do that."

Pepper's eyes filled with tears. Unfairly so, Tony thought. He was already on the brink of tears himself. Her lips fluttered against the bruise right under his right eye. "I'll fix that," she promised him.

He pressed his forehead to hers, maybe a little too hard. Tony's hand found Pepper's easily, fingers twining desperately. "Pep," he said, "I've had a rough day."

"I've heard. You didn't answer your phone."

"So you called- who, exactly? Rhodey's still in the hospital."

"Happy."

"Oh. Right."

"Do you want to tell me about it?"

Tony's head tilted up. Her face was inches from him, and he decided, in that moment, that he was going to keep Steve's secret too. "No. I don't want to tell anybody."

Pepper swallowed. "Okay. I'll get the-"

"What are you doing here, Pepper?"

It was a legitimate question. She'd been halfway through standing up, in Tony's frigid hotel room that had flawless room temperature control. Her bag was on the corner table; hastily dropped on top of what was left of his suit. Pepper was out of place; Tony's favorite thing in the world smack dab in the middle of his misery.

She lowered herself back on her knees. Tony was still gripping her hand.

"I shouldn't have left," she murmured.

"Am I that pathetic? I mean, it's only been a week."

For the first time, he noticed the bags under her eyes. That's how it always worked, with them – even when he tried his hardest to put her first, he still failed to notice something crucial. "It's been a long week."

"For me, too," Tony croaked.

Pepper took a deep breath. "Tony, listen to me. I'm stuck."

He reeled back like she'd slapped him as hard as she could. "I'm not imprisoning you-"

"No," she hastened to add, "no, it's not you. It's me."

"Pepper, I don't know how to tell you this, but we've already broken up."

Her hand came up to cover her muffled laughter. Tony's lips almost quirked into a grin. "Just like that," she murmured, amusement fading. "That's all it takes for you to make me forget to be serious."

Tony had had a very bad day, and Pepper was there. He still technically had a kid to chaperone home. Happy was waiting; Pepper had a fast hold of his hand like it was something precious. He was sat up against the wall, where he was dramatically brooding about Steve Rogers and the Avengers, but Pepper had really blue eyes.

"I can't stay away," she explained falteringly. Tony kept trying to memorize the different shades in her irises. "Or at least I'm not good at it. And I- I think I know how this story goes." Pepper blinked several times and looked down so Tony wouldn't see her tears. "I was fighting my place in it. But I realized – I don't have- there isn't someone else. There isn't another place."

"What're you saying?"

Tony was still holding her hand. Her fingers tightened around his. "I'm saying I chose you, and I don't take it back."

"I haven't changed." His heartbeat hammered. _Brave_, his mother had called him, but he wasn't – just a scared little boy, afraid he was about to get his heart broken.

Pepper's smile was sad now. "I don't want you to."

"That's not true."

She closed her eyes. "The man you are, Tony – I love you. I've loved you from the beginning, because- because I'm an idiot, probably. Some people are just born to want things that hurt them."

Tony brought Pepper's hand to his lips. "I don't want to hurt you."

"I know."

"I only ever wanted to change," he murmured into her palm. "Wanting is not enough."

Her other hand came up to run through his hair, soft and loving. "You _did_ change. Into what you were always supposed to be."

"When someone took the choice away from me."

Pepper's hand froze and tightened. "Tony," she said, serious and fond, "the choice is – has always been, will always be – _yours_."

* * *

Tony carefully handed Morgan over to Rhodey, fingers only fluttering away from under her head when he was sure its full weight was supported by his friend's arm. Rhodey watched this with some amusement.

"It's like an alternate reality," he chuckled. "You're a _dad_."

"Focus on holding the baby, Rhodey," Tony admonished, but there was a smile on his face. "It's very complicated business. If a meteor hits, you'll be too distracted making fun of me to handle the crisis."

"You're crazy," Rhodey scoffed. "You think babies aren't resilient enough to withstand meteors? There's a reason humans outlived dinosaurs, you know."

Tony snorted, sneaking a finger inside Morgan's hand. It immediately tightened, and his grin broadened. Rhodey was still watching him. "You're really done, aren't you?"

Tony's smile disappeared immediately. "Done with what?"

Rhodey almost looked contrite, handing Morgan back over. Tony pressed his lips to her forehead, and she sniffed responsively. "With- oh, c'mon, man. You know what I'm saying. We've barely returned to normalcy, since-"

"We're not returning to normalcy, Rhodey, not ever."

"I know."

Tony tucked Morgan closer; she burped. Her eyes were big, brown and bright, and Pepper had immediately said they belonged to him. All Tony saw were the lines of her mother's face, the same tender, unyielding qualities. The bottom line was that he could not seem to stop staring.

Tony shifted her so he could wrap the blanket more securely around her, and looked up at Rhodey very briefly. "I fought so hard," he said, "I made a ton of mistakes, I tried so many things – Rhodey, Iron Man is – was – just a failed experiment."

Rhodey looked like he was struggling not to scoff. "You're giving up?"

"Yup. Yeah, sure am."

"Tony, I've seen you do a lot of unexpected things," he replied calmly. "I've never seen you give up."

Tony thought about all the aborted, collapsed models FRIDAY was keeping in detailed files, down in the garage, as a shrine to his every mistake. "You're seeing it now," he promised.

Rhodey was gazing at him with a sort of tense energy that Tony associated with an upcoming fight. "I'm not going to change your mind." Tony shook his head. Rhodey deflated, like that particular fight was one for which he was underdressed and outgunned. "I don't believe you. But I don't think this is the time and place."

Tony looked away from him. "It's all over, Rhodey. Done. Don't- I wouldn't keep a torch burning, if I were you."

"Are you happy here, Tony?" Tony frowned at him, and Rhodey shook his head, brushing a hand over Morgan's head. "I hope you are. I hope this isn't just a bubble waiting to burst."

Tony gave it a moment's pause. "Me too."

* * *

"Mr. Stark, did you know Midtown tried to get a fieldtrip booked to SI?! You would not believe what MJ was saying, and then Flash-"

Sometimes, Spider-Man showed up at the compound unexpectedly. Tony braced himself.

Peter crashed into him, his backpack flying all the way down to the crook of his elbow. Tony gripped the kid's shoulders to steady him; Peter didn't even have a reflex apology on the tip of his tongue for these almost-hugs that kept happening, not anymore. He merely kept talking, as though he hadn't just been texting and running.

"Well, obviously, SI doesn't give out fieldtrips, and I pointed that out, and Mr. Anderson didn't even know that – so _Flash _said his dad would get the fieldtrip booked himself, and I tried to warn him it was pointless, but you know how Flash is, so now tomorrow he's gonna show up-"

Luckily, Tony was well-versed in what to do in these situations. He led Peter to the kitchenette. "Sit down, drink some water," Tony ordered, guiding him onto a chair. He grabbed a banana off the counter on the way. "Here, have a banana."

Peter did not even blink, just peeled it open and bit down on half of it in one go. Tony stared. "An' _'hen-_" he tried to keep saying with his mouth full. Tony forced his jaw closed.

"I'm gonna break it down even further," he said, much slower. "Put your butt on the seat, take reasonable bites off the banana, chew them carefully, swallow, put the peel in the trash, and _then _you can get back to rambling."

Peter glanced at him, then at the banana, and took a much smaller bite. Tony had no idea why his hand was still on the kid's shoulder.

"Alright," Peter tried again determinedly, after Tony disposed of his banana peel, "_so_ _then_, Ned was obviously laughing his ass off and telling me to shut up – I don't think it'll be that funny when Flash shows up tomorrow empty-handed, but whatever, we're just gonna end up going to MoMA anyway-"

That night, Tony had an absurdly realistic dream about a kid named _Morgan_.

* * *

One morning, Tony woke up and couldn't hear Morgan outside, giggling and yelling at the alpaca, which he found immediately suspicious. He peered out the window and froze. Morgan was perfectly safe, even if in unexpected company.

"Let them be," Pepper advised him. "Have breakfast. And coffee. You can join them with a clear head."

So, Tony had breakfast, drank coffee, took a five-minute shower, and walked outside to gaze upon Morgan bonding with Aunt 'Tasha.

Someone – Tony honestly couldn't point fingers with perfect certainty – had dug out Morgan's birthday present out of his garage. Right after he'd fine-tuned the chain and replaced the wheels, Tony had painted the bicycle hot rod red, since it had come in pink and he was far too egocentric to let Morgan adhere to gender stereotypes. Pepper was still mad at him about it, because she'd forbade him from making a bike from scratch himself, afraid he'd install FRIDAY on it.

Natasha was helping Morgan stay steady on the seat with no training wheels, and his daughter seemed to be getting the hang of it impressively quickly. She circled her toy-hoarding nest once with Nat's help, then twice by herself – two feet into the third turn, she lost her balance and collapsed. Natasha was there in a flash, pulling her onto her feet and checking for scratches.

"It doesn't hurt," Tony could hear Morgan say, while poking at her knee. "Can I go again?"

"Maybe in a little bit. You're strong," Natasha told his daughter charmingly, bumping a knuckle against her nose. "Don't ever let anyone use that against you."

Morgan shrugged in return. "Maybe I'll use it against them."

No one would ever read in Natasha's smiles anything she didn't want them to. The one she offered Tony's daughter right then was no different. Morgan traipsed away with her bike, in what was possibly willful oblivion.

Natasha finally turned to make eye contact with Tony, hopped up on his porch fence. He watched her approach and only then dropped down.

"Clint used to say he loved all his children equally, even though only one of them was a little girl," Natasha told him, still smiling. She always did that, Tony reminded himself; confused pain with a smile.

"He had a point," Tony said softly, unable to think of appropriate jokes. "I'm lucky."

"You are." Natasha hugged herself in a way that still managed to keep her from looking vulnerable. "She's clever. Not surprising."

Tony gestured to his patio furniture. "Want to sit?"

"Not if you're making me drink one of your disgusting smoothies."

Tony sometimes felt like a misanthrope fascinated by people. Either that or he was chronically lonely and anti-social, but the first one sounded more erudite. That look on Natasha's face took no processing power, however, not when it was so personally recognizable – not when it was so heavy that it had broken through all of Nat's masks and shields.

"Looks like you found peace and quiet," she murmured, sitting on one of Tony's outdoor ottomans. Her eyes roved over the field comprising his property, and lingered on the childish toys scattered just to their right. "I don't know how you do it."

This was a dangerous conversation, something in Tony's brain warned testily. He felt like an addict separated from temptation by a see-through curtain. "I'm not going back," he lashed out in an almost kneejerk reaction. "I won't- I can't explain myself to you. To anyone."

"I'm not asking you to do either of those things," Natasha said calmly. "Sorry."

Tony retreated, contrite. He looked away to find Morgan in the distance, climbing a tree she knew was outside the viewing range of any window her mother might look through. The sight was enough to unwind him. "No, I- it's not your fault, I'm just- sensitive."

Natasha didn't have a response for that. She was watching Morgan too. "I'm glad. I am glad you're here, you know that? You deserve it."

"Nat-"

"Are we friends, Tony?" Natasha asked, and Tony almost physically recoiled to see her eyes brim with tears. She pressed on before he could reply. "There was supposed to be one thing I was good at," she said. "The best at. And then, I think, we all found out I'm not good enough."

Tony closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. "I know the feeling."

Natasha didn't seem to be paying attention. "Is that why we're not friends anymore?"

"We're friends, Nat," Tony objected, softening.

She glanced over, shrewd and curious. "Are we family?"

"We-" Tony hesitated, thought of Pepper and Morgan, became scared – that was already a bad enough answer, but then he opened his mouth. "Natasha, my door is always open. But I don't think- We're in different places, nowadays."

Natasha stood abruptly, and he realized he'd said something very wrong. "Goodbye, Stark."

Tony watched her go, and assured himself it was better than expositing on his trust issues. Morgan screeched and dropped down onto the grass in a cloud of leaves; he sprinted over, prepared to be told she wanted to climb up again.

"But you hold me this time," she made him promise.

When Tony glanced over just one last time, he managed to catch a glimpse of a half-red, half-blonde ponytail disappear beyond the tree-line. Natasha's arms were crossed in front of her chest and she was wearing an oversized hoodie – from his vantage point, Tony thought he was just looking at another brave, scared little girl.

* * *

_This is a very important week for you, isn't it?_

Tony had had plenty of very important weeks. Usually, they were chances to defy his father's expectations, in ways far more creative than was intended, imagined, or desired. This one felt different; the expectations were all Tony's.

(Iron Man was born in a cave, from the whirlwind of Tony Stark's rational, emotional state and a bunch of scraps, to be the canopy over his rage. It had no face, just a cold sheet of metal for a helmet; it would reflect whoever stared into it.)

The plans were one thing; the final product was something else entirely. When he showed Yinsin the assorted parts and how they would come together, Tony saw awe on his face for the first time.

"You have built quite the thing," Yinsin noted, "out of iron and anger."

"I've built our way out."

"And where are we going, Stark?" Yinsin asked, but Tony still didn't have an answer.

* * *

'_Coulson, first name Agent_', Tony wrote into a file, and then left it empty.

(_Strike two._)


	3. iii

"Are you really friends with Captain America?"

Harley sounded excited in that childish way that even the most sassy, sarcastic little shits couldn't hide. Tony handed him a potato. "Dunno." Harley used his gun to shoot the potato at a sentry Iron Man, and it made a giant hole right in the middle of its chest. "Maybe Captain America is friends with me."

Harley held out both hands – in one, he presented the severed Winter Soldier arm, and in the other, Iron Man's shattered arc reactor. _Ah_, Tony understood, _this is a dream._

"This is what friends do?" the kid asked dubiously. Tony looked down and found himself holding a scratched shield, patriotically red, white and blue. The leather strap was not fit for Tony's arm.

"You've always been the big guy, Stark," Clint, who was somehow there, said coldly. The walls were starting to rot – maggots and dark, ugly stains growing and spreading from top to bottom, from bottom to top. "Don't start pretending you care about the _common folk _now."

"Do you remember why you wouldn't hand over your suit to the government, Tony?" Bruce sounded disappointed, and Tony whirled around to find him perched on Harley's seat, lab coat and goggles and all. "Would you really just give them the Hulk in chains and a muzzle?"

"Good leaders know to put the people's needs above their own," Thor argued approvingly, standing regal right in the center of the room. The air seemed to faintly crackle around him, but Harley's garage still stunk. "They are never so arrogant as to trust themselves more than their wards trust them."

"Cap's the leader," Tony muttered. _I just pay for everything and design everything, make everyone look cooler._

"You are a protector. It rings truer still. There is no righteousness in holding onto one's principles if it comes at the cost of lives."

Captain America, however, was always righteous.

But – _I blame you_, a bereaved woman told Tony Stark, and no one in the world could be more righteous than her. Harley's workshop had rotted through, all the expensive equipment resembled a swamp, and Tony was caught in the middle, door unreachable and nowhere in sight.

* * *

"What is this, man?" Rhodey asked, frowning. JARVIS was carefully removing Iron Man's intricately assembled parts from Tony's body, and Rhodey was leaning against the wall, thus far in silent contemplation. "Where is it going?"

"Say what?" Rhodey picked up the gold mask and put it in front of his own face. "_Hey_, get your own."

"What's your priority?" Rhodey clarified, setting it down on the table with a clang. "Because I've been worried about you since we met, and it feels like everything else has changed but that."

"Rhodey," Tony replied patiently, "when have I _ever _done anything except _exactly_ what I want?"

"Never," his best friend returned promptly. "So?"

"I'm gonna be fine."

"That doesn't track, Tony. At all. Not even a little."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you've never put your life first, Tony – you've put me first, you've put your company first, hell, you've put your vices first. Now you're putting Iron Man first."

"I am Iron Man," Tony quipped in return.

Rhodey opened his mouth and immediately closed it. There was a strange look on his face. "What does that mean?"

* * *

"Don't resent Steve for lecturing you when you act like you're stupid."

Ultron was hard to track, because Tony had created him. Tony created a lot of his own problems, not to mention everyone else's.

Apparently, lack of progress bored Natasha. "Can't you go make heart-eyes at Bruce or something?" Tony requested, watching her sit in the lab bench across from him, hand tucked under her chin.

She arched a single brow. "O-oh, someone's brooding."

"I'm not brooding, I'm sulking. There's a difference, thank you very much."

"My mistake," she laughed. It was a practiced, artificially perfect sound. "Will you spend your life chasing the one true solution for all of this planet's problems?"

Tony threw his hands in the air, one part mocking, three parts dismissal. "Why, is that a bad way to spend it?"

"No," Natasha acknowledged. "Fruitless, though. And, sometimes, very dangerous. Case in point."

"If you had the means to make something like Ultron – make it right – you're telling me you wouldn't do it?"

"Tony, look at me, but pay attention." She tilted her head, and her eyes flashed under the aggressive lab lights. "You think I don't know anything about a past you can't make right?"

That finally gave Tony pause. He stilled in his seat, scrutinizing her closely. "And you're here."

"I am."

"Which means you want to do something good."

"True."

"So why is Ultron a bad idea?"

"It's not a bad idea. It's just an _idea_."

Tony barked out a loud _ah_. "I've had the craziest ideas come true, Nat."

"I won't deny that. But are you familiar with the concept of incremental progress?"

"I think I read about it on a bumper sticker once."

Natasha's smile was tight and reproachful. "There isn't a magic do-over spell, Tony. We deal with things as they come up."

Tony stared at her. _I see a suit of armor around the world. _His suit of armor had holes in it, and Natasha was proposing they spend the rest of their lives mending each one. _The Avengers _– avenging: an act of reprisal that came after the fact; something useless that grieving people did to make themselves feel better.

_If we can't protect the Earth, you can be damned well sure we'll avenge it. _Tony couldn't deal with the reality of a failure anymore.

"I'm leaving," he decided, right then and there. "After this, after we deal with Ultron. I really am, this time. Done. I promised Pepper I was only going to help with finding the scepter, and, well, we found it. I need some peace and quiet."

Natasha laughed, a gentler sound than Tony was used to. "Tony," she said, still smiling, "once someone has done what we've done, they don't get peace. And you have never once in your life been quiet."

"I wouldn't accuse you of feeling despondent, Agent Romanoff."

"You're scared." Natasha stood. "That's the most terrifying thing Tony Stark can be. Just keep that in mind."

* * *

Tony knocked hesitatingly on the car window of the passenger side. He couldn't see much more than the top of his mother's head, from this angle, but he knew she was crying. This was the first time he'd worked out the courage to come down and talk to her, but he'd watched her from his windowsill more than once.

Howard's workshop was where he went when he didn't want to yell, and the car was where Maria went when she wanted to cry, and that's how everything worked. Tony just watched from behind a pane of glass.

Maria reached across and opened the car door. Tony stared up in astonishment. She'd wiped the tears away, but her eyes were still puffy.

He scrambled up onto the seat and closed the door, eyeing the keys in her hand. "Where did you want to go?"

His mother opened her mouth, closed it, and did not answer the question. "You're a brave boy, Tony, you know that?"

Tony didn't really understand the change of subject, but he didn't question it. He popped his cheeks. "I get scared."

"I know. Everyone gets scared. But you always do something about it."

He frowned. "What did I do?"

She sighed. "You came down here to talk to your crying mother."

"That's brave?" Tony questioned dubiously. He always left the window opened a crack overnight, so that he had wisps of moonlight fall on his bed, on the walls – it made him feel safe, and childish, but not brave.

Maria pressed her lips to the top of his head. "It's also kind. You have a big heart, honey."

Tony snuggled closer when she didn't let go, and Maria's fingers combed through his curls. She kissed his forehead again, and that's how Tony decided he wanted to stay for a little while. His mother's arm around his shoulder – thin, delicate and comfortable.

"Did it help?" he wondered, eventually. When he didn't get an answer, he tried a different question. "Are you still leaving?"

Maria did not have wrinkles, she had smile lines. They tightened then, at three in the afternoon of a bright summer day. Something in the depths of Tony's chest told him he wouldn't get an answer for that one either, so he twisted around, still in his mother's arms, and kept his eyes wide open.

They watched the breeze rattle birds out of fluttering tree branches until she let go.

* * *

"Don't take this the wrong way, I'm ecstatic you're here, but- _why_ are you here?"

"PR stunt," Tony explained promptly, snapping the helmet over his face. "You're more likeable than I am."

He unlocked Peter's window and jumped out, repulsors activating to allow Tony to hover just outside the kid's apartment. Peter poked his head outside to stare at him with wide eyes. He was already in the suit, but the mask was still hanging limp from his hand. "Just so you know, if Ms. Potts asks Happy to ask me if and where you're avoiding wedding planning responsibilities, I won't lie."

Tony grinned. "We either have time for Star Wars references or your questioning of my life choices. Can't do both. Choose wisely."

Peter stuffed the Spider-Man mask on, perched himself on the windowsill, and swung out of his room. Tony flew away after him. The streets of Queens were hardly deserted at this time of night, Tony noted – no wonder the kid felt the need to patrol. Maybe Iron Man should join in more often.

"_So, uh, fair warning –_" Peter said, latching onto the fifth floor of a nearby building– "_I'm supposed to meet someone on patrol today-_"

"Pete, I don't care how pretty she is, that suit is _not_ meant to act as a chick magnet."

"Mr. Stark," Peter groaned. "_No, it's Spider-Man business. This guy says he knows about a human trafficking ring making a sale in town next week, and-_"

"And you were obviously going to tell me about this before you attempted to interrupt a _human trafficking sale_," Tony interrupted, voice suddenly steely. "I do believe we've been over this, kid."

"_I _was," Peter hurried to assure him. Tony followed him around a corner, which Spider-Man passed by swinging a little too close to the asphalt for Tony's comfort. "_I really was, I was just going to gather the most information I could, and _then _I was going to call you._"

"Okay, good," Tony said, back to his previous cheerfulness. "So where is this very well-connected man?"

"_Alright, yeah, he knew about it because he hangs around in- not-upstanding places, but really, he's a nice guy, I only ever caught him doing, like, _two _illegal things-_"

"Parker, you trouble me," Tony said gravelly. Peter landed suddenly, so Tony followed his lead. "This is the place?"

They were under a bridge, one of those places Tony didn't care to visit during the day, let alone at night. A car passed in front of them and nearly crashed when its headlights reflected off the Iron Man armor. Tony turned to Peter, letting his helmet retreat.

"Is this one of those mom-and-pop bridges I've heard so much about? It's cozy."

But Peter wasn't paying attention. "Mr. Davis," he called to Tony's right, a mask-muffled version of his voice. "You know I can see you, right?"

"Is everything a superpower with you?" Davis replied testily, coming out of the shadows. Tony squinted at his somewhat haggard appearance, and the man eyed him back apprehensively. "The hell did you bring Iron Man for?" he hissed in Peter's direction. Tony hung back and wished he had popcorn. "What, are you angling for some media coverage or something? I thought you were a small-time superhero."

"He is," Tony interrupted before Peter could open his mouth. "I'm just, uh –" he kicked an abandoned soda can away from him, and the moldy spot it left on the asphalt told Tony it had been there for a while – "seeing the sights. Slumming it, if you will."

"I won't," both Peter and Davis protested huffily. Tony's lips quirked under the helmet, and he leaned against the nearest disgusting wall, crossing his ankles. "You said you had something to tell me," Peter reminded Davis, turning to face the man.

"What?" Davis replied, confusedly staring back. His expression cleared up after a moment. "Oh, yeah, no, that human trafficking stuff – it was just a bullshit story, I wanted to talk to you."

Tony pushed off the wall. Peter didn't look appropriately alarmed by this, in his opinion. "I'm sorry, you what now?"

"You've gotta stop doing this, man," Peter complained. "It's not funny."

"Listen, I need a favor," Davis insisted, still talking to Peter. "My nephew's having this birthday party next week-"

"You fibbed about a _human trafficking operation _to extend a _birthday invite_?" Tony deadpanned, not relaxing yet. "You need me to set you up with an e-mail account?"

Davis seemed annoyed at having to address him. "I don't have Spider-Man's e-mail, do I?"

"Did you try projecting a giant spider onto the clouds?"

"We've had clear weather lately."

"Okay!" Peter exclaimed, putting his hands up between the two of them. "That's enough – Mr. Davis, I'm really sorry, I'm not going to your nephew's birthday party, it's not-"

"Sure he is," Tony cut him off, clapping both hands on each of Peter's shoulders from behind. Peter's head whipped around to give him a glare behind the mask, Tony could tell. "In fact, I'll be there too. We'll make it a big fat superhero bash. Hey, you have any particular moral stand against some war criminals who might show up?"

Davis looked alarmed. "Hey, man, I don't want feds knocking down my door-"

"So, what you're saying is, invitation withdrawn? Cap will shed some tears."

"Alright, that's it, we're leaving," Peter declared, dragging Tony with him. Davis was left shrugging, not looking too particularly upset by the turn of events; Tony kept an eye on his retreating back until he disappeared from view.

"Kid, you need new friends," he announced, turning back to Spider-Man. Peter leapt up onto the bridge and started swinging again, and Tony shot up in his trail. "That was one of the weirdest interactions I've ever had, and I know a robot who's dating a witch."

"He's not my friend," Peter protested, swinging more leisurely now – Tony assumed this was the patrolling part of Spidey's patrol. "He doesn't even know my name."

"I thought everyone was your friend."

Spider-Man stopped on a random rooftop and stared down for several seconds. Tony waited and watched him carefully take in the city beneath him, looking for anyone who might need his help. Peter, Tony reminded himself yet again, was a small-time superhero; he operated at a much less dangerous scale than the Avengers did. (_For now._) Tony's mind, faced with someone luring the kid somewhere dark and uninviting at night, had immediately jumped to _trap_; but he was in Spider-Man's world, not Iron Man's. In this place, it really was just a guy wanting a superhero to show up at his nephew's party.

"Mr. Stark," Peter called, interrupting his thought process, "I think that guy is trying to steal that car, but I can't tell for sure."

"Maybe you should go ask him," Tony suggested, eyeing the shifty-looking man wrestling frantically with the door handle of a Ford.

The kid swung down, landed on the tips of his toes, leaned against the car, and asked, in a perfectly casual tone of voice, "Hey, man, are you trying to steal that car?"

Tony snickered and made FRIDAY match the plates to a driver's license that most definitely did not have that man's face on it. "Hundred bucks says that's not his car."

Peter acknowledged that by tilting his head. The guy squinted at Spider-Man, not noticing Iron Man hovering above them. "And if I say no, you're gonna believe me?"

Peter crossed his arms. "We can't be friends if you're a liar."

The guy's left hand was still on the car handle, but the right one suddenly lashed out with a knife – Peter dodged it easily, and he was off. After he'd made the first arrest of the night, Tony approached again, content with not having had to interfere. "Hey, Mr. Stark," Peter greeted, "I don't have a hundred bucks."

"You really should never leave the house without at least a thousand in your pocket," Tony advised.

"I think we lead very different lives," Peter informed him.

"Just as well, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to bet itsy-bitsy minors."

Peter patrolled for three hours, give or take. Tony was impressed that he could fit this into his daily schedule, though it explained why the kid was always falling asleep in the weirdest places. Sometimes, Tony felt bored enough to pick someone out of the fight and take them for a disorienting flight, but mostly, he was happy to observe Peter in his element, and to occasionally escort anyone acting particularly annoying to the local police station.

At Spider-Man's side, Iron Man almost became something honorable, instead of the product of Tony's atonement. For three hours, he managed to forget most of what the armor stood for.

"So, where does one make such charming acquaintances like Davis?" Tony wondered through the comms., flying back in the direction of the Parkers' apartment. Peter swung up just ahead. "I'm just wondering, my social life recently took a massive freedom-shaped hit."

Peter snorted. It was really easy to make that kid laugh, Tony thought, with a fondness that didn't even surprise him anymore.

"_He's from Queens. We met when I was investigating the Vulture._"

"Is that what we're calling it?"

"'_Investigating' or 'Vulture'?_"

Tony absolutely did not grin. "Parker."

"_Right, so, Mr. Davis, he was the one – I mean, he knew about the ferry, and ever since- It's sort of- well, he's not really, but if I were to make a parallel-_"

"Kid, I'm going to have grandchildren by the time you spit it out."

Peter appeared to screw up his courage. "_He's an informant._"

Tony cackled for three full minutes. Peter sulked and refused to text him until the morning.

* * *

_I hate you_, Tony almost said, stupidly, and swallowed his seething rage instead. He watched civilization blur into nature, into tunnels and concrete and nothing, and almost said, _I wish I hated you_. Dirt roads turned a beautiful orange color, under the ever-darkening sky; both sharp and warm in equal measures.

"Where are we going?" Tony's mother asked again, but his father shifted gears and locked his jaw; everything was quiet.

* * *

"_Oops._"

Tony's head snapped up immediately. _Oops_, coming from Morgan, could mean anything from 'I forgot to say goodnight to the poltergeist who lives in the kitchen' to 'I dropped a really big knife I really shouldn't have been able to grab on my foot'.

Thankfully, this time, _oops _only meant 'I snapped off part of your particle accelerator tubing'. Which was good, because Tony was getting bored of blaming his kitchen accidents on the poltergeist. Morgan offered him a sheepish grin, evidence of her misdeed in hand. She knew how to play to her strengths _and _to Tony's weaknesses.

"_Oops_, indeed," Tony said dramatically, wheeling his chair over to pluck the metal piece out of her hands. He threw it over his shoulder. "You didn't even hide the evidence. And if you wanted to create mayhem in my garage, that was a terrible way to do it – you can't even _imagine _the mess if you'd broken down the actual accelerator instead."

"Show me," was her natural and immediate response, excitedly bouncing into his arms.

"Well, I would, but unfortunately, that wouldn't be very good for your health. Which, in turn, would make mommy cry; which, in turn, wouldn't be very good for _my_ health."

"You would never make mommy cry."

Tony's lips twitched as Morgan climbed up onto his lap. Six-year-old Tony hadn't been very bright. He was brighter than twenty-year-old Tony, but still, not that bright. Dealing with four-year-old Morgan made that clearer than ever, because in Tony's humble opinion, that girl was the brightest person in the world.

Times like this, however, reminded him that despite all her cognizance, for her, the world was still mostly unexplored. He brushed her bangs out of her face and didn't correct her. "Exactly. So, in order to make that happen, let's recap daddy's garage rule."

"I can't touch, lick, or poke with a stick anything in here if you are not with me," Morgan parroted dutifully.

"That's right," Tony nodded, "and until the day you find another loophole in there, that's how it's gonna stay."

"You were in here with me, though," she pointed out.

"You are absolutely correct, this is all on me," Tony said, aggrieved. "My first mistake was having a fun little girl in my house and, instead of going outside to play with her, I decided to lock myself in the workshop to do boring adult stuff."

Morgan beamed and jumped down, dragging Tony to the stairs by the hand. Before he took the first step, Tony had the wherewithal to shut down the holograms he was playing with, on FRIDAY's interface. The words '_MODEL INVIABLE'_ winked out on him, and the lit-up soft blue stripes disappeared from Morgan's hair.

Predictably, his daughter shot off the porch the second Tony closed the door behind them. He chased after her, forgot about cheating death and playing god, and imagined that one of these days, Morgan might just outrun him.

* * *

Eventually (too little, too late), it occurred to Tony that Steve was human, too.

_You're brave_, Maria whispered as a metal fist rammed into his father's face, once. _You're kind_, and it hit twice. _You're strong_, Howard snapped, but Tony was watching a hand wrap around his mother's throat, _so don't get angry._

_You're smart_ – and Tony understood, turning to face Steve, that Captain America had secrets of his own. _You have a big heart_, someone urged, but this was one of those days when everyone was a liar.

"Bucky was all I had for a very long time," Tony remembered Steve saying, a rueful, patriotic smile on his face. "Sometimes, I feel like he still is." Tony lasered Barnes' arm off.

"Rhodes did the same for me," Tony had commiserated in return. Rhodey's spine cracking against the ground, inside the armor Tony had built him, had been completely silent. "And bullshit, Rogers, the hell do you mean, _he still is_? What am I, chopped liver? Romanoff and Wilson would be kicking your ass right now, you're lucky I'm so permissive." Steve had laughed, and it hadn't even sounded that hollow.

In the here and now, Tony gave Captain America an ultimatum. _Barnes' life or yours._

Steve Rogers stood back up. Tony could have seen that coming. "I can do this all day."

_Bite me_, Tony wanted to reply, but the words got stuck around a lump in his throat, so he just raised his gauntlet again. _Iron Man is built of anger._

(_Where are you going? _Tony wondered, watching him limp away with Barnes' arm over his shoulders.)

It was just that Steve didn't look like the type of human that Tony had imagined could make mistakes.

* * *

Happy was supposed to be Tony's bodyguard, but somewhere along the way, Tony had somehow found a way to add '_defender_' to his extensive list of character traits and defects. Even from the start, Tony hired a lonely kid in a bowling alley as a way to _protect_ him; and Happy had still taken the hit for him.

In the hospital, Happy was oblivious to the mess he shouldn't be involved with in the first place. Tony was angry, and he had just made it personal. _A chemical mixture that makes chaos. _Iron Man was always the most volatile reagent.

* * *

"This conversation is happening," Pepper said, "whether you would like to be a part of it or not."

"I would not," Tony answered, and felt like that was enough contribution on his part.

She was his whole entire world. It was a fairly simple conclusion he'd arrived at a very long time ago. It was a conversation that should have taken place before either of them could get this invested.

"Neither would I, but Tony," Pepper said, so softly that his heart broke, "you won't stop. And it's- I told you. I don't want to be a part of it. I thought- it really doesn't matter what I thought. I was wrong. You can't stop."

It _was_ that simple. Tony just kept staring at his hands. _Who does the world belong to_,he wondered, _and who am I to claim it?_

"Tell me you could," she begged, "but don't lie."

He remained mute. Pepper nodded once, sharp and decided.

"I have to go."

_Where are you going?_

* * *

Yinsin turned into Nebula, Nebula turned into Yinsin, and there Tony was, still bleeding from self-inflicted wounds; nothing had changed.

_Strike one_, Yinsin warned him wisely, and Tony took it to heart. Nebula wiped Peter's dust from his palms, leaving only callouses and dry skin. The blood in his hands had no right to be invisible, but it was.

_Peace in our time._


	4. iv

Putting an end to something - saying goodbye - was not one of Tony's many talents. He'd faster get into a racecar and speed away forever than sit down and shake someone's hand for the last time, get a parting hug.

In his dreams, his racecar was red. It wasn't fast enough to leave everyone behind.

Sitting in the front seat, Pepper offered him a familiar expressive smile, linking hands with him over the gear stick. Tony didn't take his gaze off her even as he noted his father's presence in the backseat. The blue in her eyes was the brightest spot in the whole wide universe.

"The greater good has rarely outweighed my own self-interest," Howard advised him, grave and hurtful. Pepper was the most beautiful woman Tony had ever met.

"I'm your family," she begged, hurtful in an entirely different way. "Please, Tony. You're all I have."

Tony's eyes tightened. His car flashed through a blinding tunnel, and in the shadows, Pepper had switched places with Howard.

"What comes first?" his father asked from the passenger seat. "You're better than me. Haven't you known, your whole life?"

"I have," Pepper said, and if this wasn't a dream, Tony was sure it would have sounded bitter.

He shifted gears, the car crashed into a wall, and Tony was still trapped.

"I promise," Peter swore, looming above him with red eyes; Tony thought he'd seen this kid tear up more than anyone else in his life, his toddler included. "I promise I'll be better."

But the brick house held steady, Spider-Man wasn't there; Tony was burning, and couldn't say anything back.

* * *

_How did you get out of the wormhole?_

No regular healthy person obsessed over their own mortality, but Tony was neither healthy nor regular. He found himself routinely staring at the sky and imagining it as a shield – whether it was a shield for his home or for the sight of a hostile army, he didn't know. Tony pictured a scar too; a mocking reminder of the door the Avengers just barely slammed shut.

It took him a bit, but Tony finally figured out it wasn't _his _mortality he was frantic about.

_What did you see up there? (You always do something about it.)_

Tony's reaction was to do what he was good at – he took all his worries, fears, predictions and hopes, dumped them in an impressive file, and labelled it _Even Dead I'm The Hero_.

_Lethal_. That's what EDITH was, Tony knew, poring over the specs he wrote practically overnight. The one thing he had never wanted to make again. After all these years of fighting, Tony still hadn't figured out a way to build a non-lethal weapon. So he shoved the file into the darkest corner of his mind, encrypted the AI with every key known to man, and pretended he could forget about it.

(He didn't purge it.)

_When are the monsters coming? Where are they going?_

Years later, Tony met the greatest living non-lethal weapon in the world, and finally understood it was the type of thing that couldn't be built.

Tony's hand on the wheel always caused disasters – Ultron and Peter Parker were two sides of the same coin. He'd made a mistake, with Ultron – his recurring Achilles' heel, believing he could control that kind of power. But Tony learned how to fix it – he just needed to hand over the wheel to someone he could trust more than he trusted himself. Sometimes, he wondered if the kid knew what Tony saw, when he looked at Spider-Man.

Upstairs, Pepper was waiting on him, in the mood to spend newly-engaged time together. Tony pulled up EDITH's file, cleaned it up, and linked it to the biometrics collected by the Spider-Man suit – and no one else's.

* * *

Tony spent weeks wallowing in his grief over Peter, before Happy Hogan's name made its way into his mind. It hadn't even occurred to him that the kid could have taken Happy with him, just that Happy would have wanted to know about Peter's fate.

He stood in place for an hour, afterwards, listening to the disconnected number dial tone on repeat, and told himself a friend like Happy had deserved better than a friend like Tony.

* * *

The first time Tony made Rhodey laugh himself to tears, it was Tony's eighteenth birthday and he was dressed in formal-picture-taking attire. It wasn't even the clothes that got to him, it was mostly the hair – Tony had been made to part and style it according to his mother's rules. The one time he tried to stick his fingers in it, Maria had given him a piercing, disapproving look, and Tony had sheepishly patted it back into place.

"This alone makes the trip worth it."

"And here I thought you only came for my considerable wealth and lavish lifestyle," Tony retorted glibly, but Rhodey was too busy giggling every time he laid eyes on him to shoot back with anything witty.

Tony's birthday lunch was being used as an excuse for some fundraiser, or SI function, or some discrete meeting for some business of Howard's or another. So, as soon as he felt he could get away with it, he grabbed Rhodey and snuck out the front door.

"Wouldn't it make your life easier to just ask permission?" Rhodey asked, exasperated, but still right on Tony's heel. "I know it's more fun this way, but you don't _actually _have to give your mother a heart attack every time you disappear without telling her."

"It's easier to ignore my dad saying 'no' if I never actually hear him say it," Tony explained sagely.

Rhodey rolled his eyes, but protested no further. Tony changed into jeans and leather, and commandeered one of his father's jets for an impromptu trip to London, where Rhodey wasn't allowed to nag him about his lack of drinking age anymore. He nagged anyway, but Tony got him drunk too, and what Rhodey failed to notice while inebriated couldn't hurt him.

"How come," Rhodey slurred out, sprawled out in one of the expensive leather seats, "you assume Mr. Stark would say no to this? It's your birthday."

"You really need to work on your tolerance, this is pathetic," Tony declared, trying to poke his best friend's forehead and nearly jabbing a finger into his right eye instead. "Would _you_ say yes?"

"No, but that's because you're an idiot."

"_Exactly._"

"So, your argument is that he _should_ say no?"

"You're not drunk enough," Tony said, nose scrunching up, and poured him another glass. "What if I don't care what I should do?"

"What if you didn't base your every action on the exact opposite of what he'd want you to do?"

"_Hey_, I'm a bad son, he's a bad father, it's a whole cycle of shame. If it ain't broke, dot dot dot."

Rhodey belched and tried to remember what he had been talking about. "You're an idiot," he told Tony, because he didn't remember if he'd pointed it out, and he wanted to make sure it didn't go unsaid.

"I'm just following his example," Tony shrugged, reaching for another bottle. "If I say right, he says left. If I say left, he says right."

"Funny how you cherry-pick which examples to follow. Have you tried saying nothing at all?"

"And deprive him of the opportunity to complain about me? Heavens forbid, his head would burst."

In the early morning, on their way back, Tony decided to peer pressure the pilot into drinking with them. Rhodey was too out of it to stop it, the pilot was too new and intimidated by Tony's last name, and the jet had a very bumpy landing. It ended with Tony skidding out of his seat and Rhodey remaining in his, snoring stoically.

Tony shook him awake. Rhodey blinked up at him. "Uh-oh," he said groggily, "I left you unsupervised."

Howard yelled at them for an hour. Maria intervened with the pretext that the two of them needed sleep, and Tony avoided her eyes, nudging Rhodey forward. They both stumbled their way into Tony's bed, fully dressed, and Tony stole the entire comforter to make a burrito out of himself. Rhodey rolled him off the bed for it, and only then did Tony agree to share. The sun made it look like it was already noon outside, when they finally settled.

"When you have a kid, I hope he straight-up crashes your jet," Rhodey said, apparently not yet willing to go to sleep like a normal hungover person. He sounded like he was grinning, which meant he was still at least a little bit inebriated. "I'm pretty sure that's how cosmic retribution works."

Tony poked his head from under the sheets, opened his eyes with great effort, and gave Rhodey a look of pure conviction. "Only one solution – never have kids. Ever."

"I'm gonna watch you settle down one day. You wait."

"You could watch me settle down tomorrow. Between eleven pm and three am, nightly. Just never with the same person twice."

"You're disgusting. It's gonna take a saint to put up with you and your kid. He's gonna be as much of a pain in the ass as you."

"That'll be a problem. I'm an atheist, I don't believe in saints," Tony pointed out, mockingly morose.

"For now," Rhodey mumbled, eyes drooping with sleep. "I promise to stick around. Just to rub your face in it when you turn out to be wrong."

There was a short moment of silence before Tony's reply came. Rhodey was probably already asleep.

"That's what you've always been here for, Rhodes."

* * *

Rhodey was the simplest, fullest relationship Tony had. Steve was the most complex, volatile relationship Tony had. But their hands felt the same – a military man's hold, rough and determined and full of meaningful purpose. Warm and human, clammy from the weather.

"You trust me?" Tony asked, because it mattered too much.

"I do."

The year was two-thousand-and-twenty-three, the sun beat down on perfectly parted blonde hair, and Tony asked Steve Rogers to trust him. The year was two-thousand-and-twelve, the sun beat down on scruffy hair streaked in shades of gray, and he did.

* * *

"Pepper-"

"Ms. Potts." It was so sharp and cutting, Tony shut up immediately. She didn't even look contrite, and he thought just maybe he'd found his religion.

"Ms. Potts," Tony tested, and grinned when he could make it satisfyingly lewd. Pepper rolled her eyes, and he grinned harder. "Just promise me, you ever get the urge to quit, let me know, and I will shamelessly double your salary."

Pepper's eyebrows rose slowly. "You're not a very good negotiator, are you?"

"Ghastly," he admitted easily. "But I think I'd like to keep you."

Pepper thought for a second, expression strangely inscrutable. "You anticipate having to fight for that?"

Alarm bells went off in Tony's head, and he took a step back immediately. "No psychoanalysis on the first date, please." Damage control had never been his forte.

"That's quite an informative answer, Mr. Stark," Pepper murmured, visibly containing a smile. "Stop referring to dates in a professional setting and I'll take the job."

Tony relaxed. "Done deal. I'll find a different setting for- non-professional matters."

Pepper stood elegantly, brushed the entirety of her long hair behind her shoulder, and didn't even bother to give him a reproachful look. She didn't linger at the door, but Tony was left trying to stare through it several minutes after it slid shut, behind the click of her heels.

* * *

_I love you_, Tony almost said, except it came out like _thank you_. For a moment, his father's hug was only warm, instead of late, pointless, frozen in time, and practically meaningless.

* * *

"What is this?" Nebula asked, Tony's nanoparticle container looking heavy and light in her hands.

"I dunno anymore," he said truthfully. "I used to call it my heart, but that one's new."

"Your heart still beats." she said, a hand firm and coldly disinterested on his chest. Tony would've felt offended, were he any younger. "How many hearts does a man have?"

"I don't know. As many as he's allowed, I suppose."

Tony didn't think he was making much sense; there were plenty basic necessities he was being deprived of at the current moment. But Nebula looked at him like she understood, and quietly fixed the arc reactor back in its place.

* * *

_I just finally know what I have to do._

"Where are you going?" Morgan asked, shrieking and giggling and chasing after Tony. He was getting old, and she was determined to stay young forever; one of these days, Tony thought, she might just outrun him.

_I have to protect the one thing I can't live without._

* * *

_I shouldn't be alive. (I used to have nothing. And then I got this- family.)_

"Where am I going?" Tony wondered, burning the whole wide universe into his skin, his flesh, his soul.

_Unless it was for a reason. (Nothing lasts forever.)_

* * *

Reasons ran out faster than anyone cared to ponder. Tony knocked on a car window, once, and asked his mother for the keys.

"Where are we going?" Maria asked, and Tony replied, "Somewhere loud and peaceful."

* * *

It was Tony's dream again. All his questions, all his unfinished stories, the riddles keeping him chained – every single one just another glimpse of a boundless life he lived without quite realizing it.

"Daddy," Morgan said, "you can't stay here forever."

Tony looked around. Another one of his escape rooms, holograms teasing every memory he'd ever had just outside the corner of his eye. It was brighter, here, under the encompassing blue glow.

"It's not my place anymore," he agreed, just as Spider-Man swung above him.

This time, when Tony looked in the mirror, a red and gold suit of armor with anger in its every sharpened line stared back. This time, there was a crowd of people behind him – a crowd of people each counting on Tony to find an exit. This time, he raised an arm – a sleek metal repulsor - Tony's arm, Iron Man's gauntlet – and fired into the mirror himself.

The way out was always hidden behind the shattered pieces of his reflection – the only door in his trap – and now, Tony could see through it and beyond.

_I am Iron Man._


End file.
